"Prince Mohammed bin Salman" is 666 in prime numbers. He just signed a peace deal with israel. He is an Assyrian Prince. King Salman of Assyrian (Saudi Arabia is Assyria) found in 2 Kings 17:3 and 2 Esdras 13:40 He is the little horn. The beast with 7 heads is the house of Saud and its 7 kings. The 10 horns with 10 crowns, are the 10 Crown Princes. the little Horn is the youngest price "Prince Mohammed bin Salman" King Salman is the dragon that gave power to the beast. The 6 of the 7 kings and brothers of the first king.
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (REUTERS Handout/File Photo)
Charisma published an article on July 3, 2019, in which I suggested Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman could be the prophesied Antichrist.
The article, titled "Is the Antichrist Now on the World Stage?" has well stood the test of time. The dragon of Revelation 12 (clearly a description of Satan) assigns full authority to a beast rising from the sea taking earthly control of all political systems impacting the Holy Land. This beast is no respecter of persons or of deities other than the dragon, and the beast's rule is absolute—the ultimate authoritarian.
How is it that one such man could command worldwide influence and authority? In answer, there is an obvious scenario. We are instructed by Ephesians 6:12 that "our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."
Anyone totally committed to spiritual forces of evil, even if unaware of it, is an obvious candidate. Such power derives not only from earthly influences but from those dark powers temporarily tolerated by God in His great mission to institutionalize total freedom of choice throughout His everlasting kingdom. There can be no freedom of choice in a system that doesn't offer both rights and wrongs.
I won't repeat all the reasons I earlier selected the crown prince as my candidate. The proofs are manifold, and can be retrieved quickly here.
A Huge Question
In one of his most astounding moments these past few months, the prince set an industry record by paying $450.3 million for a Leonardo da Vinci portrait of Jesus Christ. Nearly a half-billion dollars for a painting! At first blush, one might question his sanity. But we suspect a much deeper, devilishly clever rationale.
Daniel 11:36 prophesies the rise of a demonic king who "shall do according to his will. And he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak blasphemous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper until the indignation is accomplished. For that which is determined shall be done."
How fitting! Prince Salman is gradually throwing off the restraints of conservative mullah dictates, including those of his ailing father King Salman. He has introduced significant reforms in women's rights, Saudi educational systems, tolerance of Christian traditions such as permitting Christmas celebrations, a general loosening of social "speech laws" and much more. He also engineered a new rapport of several Arab countries with Israel, an effort he still leads.
In tandem with the liberalization of Islamic laws and practices, he is flirting with the Western world in an outlandish manner. In July 2019, according to The New York Times Magazine, he was invited by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to visit the school as an honored dignitary. The article also called attention to the Saudi state's financial ties to "at least 62 other American universities."
One grand tour, according to the article, included a private session with then-President Donald Trump, who received him cordially. The prince next rented the entire 285 rooms at the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills and hosted numerous luminaries such as media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon's Jeff Bezos.
A City Dominated by Robots?
In pursuing his dream of building a "magical world" on the shores of the Red Sea (driven by artificial intelligence technologies), Prince Salman is working deeply with Stanford University and others to create a new $500 billion world-class economic, scientific and technological city on the shores of the Red Sea, "comprising the world's finest minds and leading companies, not to mention a million inhabitants."
According to journalist Wael Hussein in a report on the main contractor, Neom Company, the city's first phase will be completed by 2025. The 5-year-old Saudi-owned company was formed specifically for this one project. Very significantly, several of the company's managing directors are women (unheard of in much of the Arab world).
Work has already begun with a commercial airport, staff residences and offices now in operation. Neom has also awarded contracts to build and operate three new residential areas for construction workers with a capacity for 30,000 people. Though difficult to verify, one Saudi website claims the company comprises up to 5,000 people assigned to the project.
Neom's founders also claim the city will be so advanced that robots will outnumber humans. The corporate website boasts: "NEOM is not about building a smart city, it is about building the first cognitive city. Everything will have a link with artificial intelligence. Amongst other things, it will also be a state-of-the-art center for advanced manufacturing and medical innovation, spearheading genetic engineering efforts to improve the human body."
In this writer's estimation, the promise of genetic engineering advances is the scariest aspect of this other-worldly city residing for the moment primarily in the prince's overblown imagination.
An Impressive Deception
All the above being said, it is clear the soon-to-be king of Saudi Arabia is wooing the Western world by establishing liberal rule in the ancient society. True to the prophecies in the books of Daniel and Revelation, he is rejecting all gods. The rulers over Saudi Arabia having always been leaders in the teaching, practices and enforcement of Islam, but Mohammed bin Salman is certainly going astray through his progressive romance with a "pagan" world.
By buying and hanging a half-billion-dollar painting of the Christian God in his palace, he is also playing to gain at least attention of the world's single-largest religious population. With controlling power over the price and supply of world oil stocks, accompanied by a presumed general acceptance among 2.383 billion Christians, along with 1.907 billion Muslims and 15 million Jews, he certainly is building a huge platform from which to launch a good shot at gaining general supernatural influence over the rest of the planet as well.
The prophesied head wound has already been delivered via his mysterious rise to power as the sixth son of the sixth Saudi dynasty bearing a sixth sense of inner destiny ushered in by the tragic deaths and disappearances of senior rivals—all of it exacerbated by the recent ritualized death of journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi. But these trespasses have been largely forgiven and forgotten. President Biden's nascent efforts to chastise the prince are mere window dressing for public consumption. The world's dependence on Saudi oil prices and supply dominate all such discourse.
It doesn't hurt that Saudi Arabia is also the world's largest buyer of U.S. military equipment and weaponry.
Despite the current slaps to the wrist, the wound to the head of the Arab world continues to heal, and the prince remains in active control. The next scene in Revelation is the arrival of the second beast, who magnifies and celebrates the first through powers of vile darkness. I doubt the wait will be long in duration.
The Arabian prince of this world, enervated by the prince of darkness, sees no personal barriers to total control. He has the inheritance of hundreds of millions in personal bank accounts, prime ownership of the $330 billion annual revenue oil company Aramco, the inherited influence of royalty, the youthful energy and intellect, hubris and moxie in proportions translating to unlimited self-confidence. Whatever he imagines, he has the means, the self-assured legitimacy and the ruthlessness to accomplish it.
As Shakespeare might say: "The world is his oyster and ripe to be swallowed up!"
Considering he headed the Saudi armed forces while barely out of his teens, Salman might justifiably view his inherited horizons as unlimited. The saga is unfolding quickly, and those of us watchmen blessed with the knowledge of what is happening must step up our sounding of the shofars.
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, front left (Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court/Handout via REUTERS)<p
According to Revelation 13, we could very well be in the last days, with the Antichrist gaining traction on the world stage.
Revelation 13:1-3 (NIV) tells us:
The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast.
"The dragon stood on the shore," refers to Satan summoning the deep forces of evil who precipitate Armageddon. The "beast" is a collective of seven heads, or powers.
Because it wears 10 crowns, three of the powers have more than one crown.
Since Russia, the European Union and China (for example) each have one supreme ruler, those three heads would have just one crown. All Islamic countries have two ruling authoritarians, a political leader and a spiritual (imam) leader. Thus, an Arab League, for example, could have two crowns.
A collective of Persian Powers (Iran, Iraq, Syria) would comprise another case of one head and multiple crowns. The caliphate, the former Ottoman Empire, headed by Turkey, could also be represented as one head with multiple crowns.
Saudi Arabia was never a power under either the Ottoman (caliphate) or the Persian reigns. It stood alone. Thus, Saudi Arabia (along with some of her subjugated acolytes) could be classified as one head with one crown.
The country is run by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is moving aggressively to dampen clergy interference in Saudi politics, effectively consolidating his position as the most powerful and unfettered monarch of the Middle East.
Today, Saudi Arabia is the most powerful of the Muslim nations and empires, possessing worldwide influence through its control of petroleum trade and pricing on a global basis. Following upon President Trump's sanctions limiting Iran's export of petroleum, Saudi exports have risen to all-time records, consolidating her role as unchallenged head of the OPEC nations.
This history could lead us to an interesting conclusion found in Revelation:
Note carefully that one of the heads of the beast suffered a fatal wound.
Is does not say that the wound was physical. It's ambiguous, but given the Bible's propensity for accuracy, it's strange that it doesn't present accompanying modifiers along with the words "fatal wound." One could surmise that one of the heads has lost its power over life-events rather than the assumption that it loses its life through a physical wound.
These assumptions are consistent with my belief that one head, in collusion with six other heads, taking orders directly from Satan, arises as a sovereign authority, directly coordinating eventual military onslaughts against the land of Israel and her small collection of allies.
Now let's consider Salman's rise to power and recent headlines surrounding his reign. His current involvement with the sanctioned execution of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi would certainly seem to be a wound that "kills" Salman's skyrocketing global influence as a bridge between the twinned worlds of East and West political and religious hegemony.
In my opinion, Salman seems now to be on his way out as titular leader of the Arab/Persian/Muslim world. But the public memory is notoriously fickle, and his continuing moderate stances on women's rights and attempts to otherwise modernize a continent stuck in 16th-century social, political and business habits could soon give him renewed traction.
Because of Salman's willingness to acknowledge the ancient Jewish right to a shared Jerusalem along with certifying much of the surrounding lands, stretching from Lebanon to the Red Sea, he could again emerge as an ultimate broker of peace, salving the planet's contagious and endless circuit of Israeli/Palestinian warfare.
This role as mediator (or interlocutor) could seem to all mankind the ultimate harbinger for a resolution to the world's longest-lasting and most intractable human dilemma: ownership of Israeli/Judean territories. With all this evidence, could Salman emerge as the primary ruling head of the beast, perhaps even the Antichrist incarnate?
We know from Bible prophecy that among the first public actions of the beast emerging from these tides of demonic derivation will be a seemingly munificent recognition of Israel's right to existence by the Arab/Muslim world. This action will disarm even the righteous, all those who fail to understand the ultimate goals of Satan.
And other world leaders are taking note.
At a recent ceremony in Paris acknowledging the 100th anniversary of the WWI armistice, The Economist magazine reports that French President Emmanuel Macron prophesied before a scowling President Trump and a poker-faced Vladimir Putin that "Old demons are rising again, ready to complete their task of chaos."
One can only wonder at the irony of the man's name, "Emmanuel." And, does he ... does anyone comprehend the great truth of which he speaks?
Ronald D. Mallettof Milliken, Colorado, studied journalism and mass communications at Colorado and Stanford Universities as a Ford Fellow. A retired corporate executive, he was director of jail and prison, Mexico outreach and intercession ministries for 19 years.
A little something you’re no doubt keenly aware of is that as a senior adviser to the president of the United States, Jared Kushner was extremely bad at his job. That prolonged government shutdown over the wall? Kushner‘s fault. The Middle East peace plan described as the “Monty Python sketch of Israeli–Palestinian peace initiatives”? That was our boy again. Cutting medical professionals out of the government’s pandemic response and scrapping nation-wide testing because the virus was primarily affecting Democratic states? Wherever you look, you find a Kush.
There was one thing Ivanka Trump’s husband was good at, though, and it was cozying up to authoritarians and excusing their heinous human rights abuses. In particular, Kushner was a big fan of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom the then president’s son-in-law reportedly texted regularly via WhatsApp and vociferously defended even though U.S. intelligence agencies determined the guy had approved the killing of Saudi dissident (and U.S. resident) Jamal Khashoggi. (Kushner, according to TheNew York Times, urged Donald Trump to “stand by the prince” and argued that the whole grisly bone-saw murder would soon blow over.)
And now, it would appear the Boy Prince of New Jersey’s loyalty is about to pay off! Per the Times:
In a move that has raised eyebrows among diplomats, investors, and ethics watchdogs, Mr. Kushner is trying to raise money from the Persian Gulf states for a new investment firm he has founded.… Qatar, whose leaders saw Mr. Kushner as an opponent in the administration, declined to invest in his firm, a person familiar with those conversations said. So did the main Emirati sovereign wealth funds; Emirati rulers saw Mr. Kushner as an ally but questioned his track record in business, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions.
But the Saudis are more interested, according to four people briefed on their continuing negotiations. The kingdom’s $450 billion Public Investment Fund is negotiating with Mr. Kushner over what could prove to be a sizable investment in his new firm, two of those people said.… According to a person familiar with the firm’s plans, Mr. Kushner hopes to raise an amount in the low billions of dollars by early next year.
Isn’t that special! Nothing says, “thanks for going to bat for us after we savagely murdered that guy,” like a nice big check for one’s opaque-sounding investment fund! And, in fairness to Kush, he truly worked his tush off for this hugely sketchy-sounding would-be deal.
In the first three months after Mr. Trump took office, Mr. Kushner bent protocol to orchestrate a private meal with the president at the White House for Prince Mohammed—in a format usually reserved for heads of state—even though the prince had not yet been designated as the successor to the throne occupied by his father, King Salman.
That spring, only a few months later, Mr. Kushner successfully pushed for his father-in-law to make his first international trip to a summit in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, where the president was photographed participating in a traditional sword dance. Around the same time, Mr. Kushner personally helped negotiate a 10-year agreement for Saudi Arabia to buy more than $110 billion in American weapons. Prince Mohammed was named crown prince that June.… After the Khashoggi killing, Mr. Kushner defended Prince Mohammed within the White House, despite intelligence reports showing his involvement in the plan to execute the journalist.
In a move widely interpreted as an attempt to protect the prince, Mr. Trump kept those reports classified throughout his term. They were unsealed this year by President [Joe] Biden, who has called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” and has adopted a much cooler approach to the kingdom than his predecessor.
Is it illegal for Kushner—whose business experience is mostly limited to operating as a glorified slumlord and a hilariously ill-timed purchase of the aptly named 666 Fifth Avenue— to accept a huge check from his Saudi pals? No, according to Nick Penniman, the founder and chief executive of Issue One, a good-government organization. Is it “swampy and seemingly hypocritical”? Hell yes, Penniman told the Times. (Incidentally, Kushner has already received something from his Mideast pals; last month the Timesreported that the Saudis had gifted him “two swords and a dagger.”)
Of course, Kushner isn’t the only member of the Trump administration to cash in on his relationships almost immediately after leaving Washington.
Steven T. Mnuchin, Mr. Trump’s Treasury secretary, has already received investments from the Saudis, the Emiratis and the Qataris, according to people familiar with the matter. Other former advisers and employees have also actively sought money from the Saudis.
In a phone call with the Times, Kushner declined to discuss his new firm, Affinity Partners, for which a person familiar with the matter said he “hopes to raise an amount in the low billions of dollars by early next year.”
How Biden Came Around to MBS’ Plan for a New U.S.-Saudi Partnership
The inside story of how the administration came to slowly realize that Saudi Arabia was too valuable to keep at arm's length.
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman listens during his meeting with then-President Donald Trump in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo
By Elise Labott
Elise Labott, a contributing editor for POLITICO Magazine, is an adjunct professor at American University’s School of International Service and CEO and founder of Zivvy Media, a digital platform engaging a Gen Z audience on global issues. Previously, she spent two decades as a global affairs correspondent for CNN.
A few weeks into his presidency, President Joe Biden sent Brett McGurk, his top Mideast advisor, to Saudi Arabia with a personal message for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto leader and heir apparent to his father King Salman.
In a tent in the ancient city of AlUla, McGurk informed the crown prince that the historically close relationship with Washington was on shaky ground. After the gruesome murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi agents and the long, bloody Saudi-led war in Yemen, Saudi Arabia had lost the political support of both parties in Congress.
Biden himself, as a candidate, had promised to punish the country and treat the Saudis “like the pariah they are” — and if anything, the pressure to disavow the longtime U.S. ally has only increased since his election.
McGurk laid out what was coming: The United States would soon be releasing a U.S. intelligence assessment fingering the crown prince for ordering Khashoggi’s murder, and sanctions would be imposed against a number of agents implicated in the U.S. intelligence investigation. Biden was also ending American support for offensive operations in Yemen, and the U.S. had a number of human rights concerns to be addressed, specifically the cases of several dual U.S.-Saudi citizens who had been arrested and released from detention but remained unable to leave the country.
With that said, Biden’s message to the crown prince also recognized U.S. and Saudi interests remained interwoven. McGurk relayed that the president hoped the two countries would be able to move forward with a new foundation to take the partnership through the next 80 years.
In response, the Saudi crown prince — referred to in diplomatic circles by his initials, MBS — repeated his insistence that he did not personally order Khashoggi’s killing, but he agreed it should never have happened and was eager to fix the relationship. His grandfather, King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, launched the U.S.-Saudi relationship with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945, and he said he hoped to write the next chapter of it and transform it for the future.
The crown prince had a few points of his own. He told McGurk he was working to change his country, but that the pace and scope of the transformation must meet Saudi needs, not America’s. He would work to further peace in the region, but he needed a U.S. commitment to Saudi defense. And there could be no surprises, particularly related to Biden’s stated desire to resume negotiations with Iran over a new nuclear deal. As partners, MBS said the United States and Saudi Arabia should deal with each other with honesty and transparency.
This week, Biden announced a move that observers had long been expecting: An official visit to Saudi Arabia, effectively thawing diplomatic relations between the countries, and acknowledging that treating the powerful petrostate as a “pariah” would be a diplomatic dead end. Interviews with several U.S. and Saudi officials involved in frank and often-tense discussions between the two sides since Biden took office suggest that it’s MBS’ vision, rather than Biden’s that has ended up charting the path forward between the two countries.
Critics pounced on the official announcement Tuesday morning. Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine told CNN the trip was a “really bad idea.” “His [MBS’] blood stain has not been cleansed,” he said. Mindful of the potential political blowback, the White House has noticeably downplayed the prospects of a meeting with the crown prince in its messaging about the visit, focusing instead on its relationship with MBS’ father, King Salman, and a meeting of regional leaders Biden will have while visiting the kingdom, contrary to a statement by the Saudi embassy in Washington which previewed “official talks” between Biden and the crown prince.
About a half a dozen Democratic lawmakers sent the president a letter warning engagement with the kingdom should be aimed at “recalibrating that relationship to serve America’s national interests”— a not-so-subtle reminder of Biden’s early promise to “recalibrate” U.S.-Saudi ties. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who helped draft the letter, said Biden should not visit the kingdom, citing MBS’ role in Khashoggi’s murder.
In a recent letter to Biden, 13 human rights groups warned efforts to repair relations without human rights at the center “are not only a betrayal of your campaign promises, but will likely embolden the crown prince to commit further violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.”
“I’m not going to change my view on human rights,” Biden said earlier this month at a briefing when asked about a possible trip to Saudi Arabia. “But as president of the United States, my job is to bring peace if I can. And that’s what I’m going to try to do.”
For Biden, there has already been a global “recalibration”— and it has taken the wind out of his campaign promise to overhaul U.S.-Saudi relations. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, senior U.S. officials say the president now views America’s global engagement, and his own role as a world leader, through a different lens than when he first took office, one in which cold hard realism takes precedence over moral considerations. As Secretary of State Antony Blinken said recently at an event marking the 100th anniversary of Foreign Affairs magazine, “statecraft often involves making difficult choices.”
“Anyone who has not reconsidered the paradigm by which we look at this region and its importance to our own vital interest is missing the larger picture,” a senior official told POLITICO.
It’s an argument not lost on Representative Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor under President Barack Obama and has been one of the harshest critics of the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The United States, he said, has “one overriding goal today that is more important than anything else, and that is beating Putin.”
“For me, this is not about human rights versus national security or oil versus Khashoggi,” Malinowski told POLITICO. “It’s about what is the best way for the United States as a superpower to ensure our client states that depend on our security are on our side in this crucial contest and do their part in ensuring Putin fails.”
Despite Biden’s unforgiving stance as a candidate, he opened his presidency with a standard diplomatic gesture toward Saudi Arabia: Once in office, he called King Salman in what both sides describe as a warm and forward-looking conversation.
Many lawmakers and advocates, though, hoped to hold Biden to the tougher side of his views on the kingdom. They saw it as a necessary response to the grisly death of an American citizen, and a corrective to the strong friendship MBS shared with, and impunity he received from, President Donald Trump. As a result of that relationship, the Democratic foreign policy elite assuming power in Washington harbored a far more negative view toward Saudi Arabia than in the past. That left the business community, eager to get into the Biden administration’s good graces, feeling unable to engage with the kingdom on commercial enterprises.
Biden’s initial policy was to take a tough line toward Saudi Arabia in public, while also trying to maintain a functional diplomatic relationship behind the scenes — in particular pushing the Saudis to end the war in Yemen and playing a constructive role in regional politics, including vis-à-vis Iraq and Israel.
Despite the chilly atmosphere, administration officials acknowledge that the Saudis have largely delivered on Washington’s requests. Since Biden took office, MBS has stepped up efforts to end the war in Yemen, stopped the blockade of Qatar, opened a dialogue with Iran in parallel to Washington’s nuclear negotiations and quietly deepened contacts with Israel. Earlier this year, Saudis took part alongside Israel in U.S.-led maritime exercises in the region. The Biden administration is now trying to broker an agreement between the two countries that allows additional commercial flights traveling to and from Israel to fly through Saudi airspace, and another for the kingdom to assume control of two strategic islands in the Red Sea. At home, the crown prince has sought to modernize the country, including neutralizing religious clerics and giving women more rights.
Saudi leaders felt the Biden team pocketed those efforts at partnership and gave little in return. Saudi officials said praise was delivered quietly behind closed doors, even as the Saudis continued to be hammered in Congress.
MBS told his aides a positive vision was needed to reframe the relationship. He thought Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan mirrored his Vision 2030 strategic plan to transform the Saudi economy. On numerous occasions, he would propose ideas on how the two countries could work together on areas from oil and food security to cyber and space cooperation. Such a partnership, he argued, would create Saudi jobs and increase U.S. global competitiveness.
“We wanted a roadmap for the partnership between both counties for the remainder of this century,” Saudi Ambassador Reema bint Bandar al-Saud told POLITICO in an interview.
Instead, Saudi officials say they continued to get a variety of asks — from helping curb instability in Iraq and aiding Lebanon’s faltering economy, to taking in Afghan refugees to mediating conflict in Sudan and Ethiopia. And then there was the oil: a standing request from the United States for Saudi Arabia to increase production to curb rising gas prices.
Riyadh also balked at what it considered half-measures responding to the threats they faced from Iran and its proxies. Washington de-listed the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen as a terrorist organization and denied Riyadh precision munitions to counter ongoing missile attacks, which the United States considered “offensive weapons.”
“The process of rebuilding a relationship takes time,” a former U.S. intelligence official with knowledge of the ongoing discussions told POLITICO. “The Saudis thought it would take six or seven months. The U.S. didn’t have a time limit. That seemed to be why the frustrations were building up.
By the time National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan made his first trip to Saudi in September, things were beginning to crumble. The meeting didn’t get off to a great start: MBS greeted Sullivan and his team at the Red Sea resort Neom in casual attire, hoping to set a casual tone among friends. The U.S. delegation showed up in formal attire for official talks.
When the subject turned to Khashoggi, MBS grew agitated. Biden had asked him for a number of things, MBS reminded Sullivan, and he had delivered. Now, it was the president’s turn to prove he could be trusted. The crown prince presented a choice: The United States could continue to live in the past, reducing the relationship with Saudi Arabia to a purely transactional one. Or the two countries could work together to tackle the myriad of global security and economic challenges they both faced.
Once again, MBS laid out his vision for cooperation across a number of sectors which, he argued, would transform the U.S. global footprint from one of bases and carriers to one of economic development and innovation. The United States, he insisted, needed a partner like Saudi Arabia. As architect of Biden’s “foreign policy for the middle class,” Sullivan was as invested in American domestic renewal as he was in its global leadership. Recognizing opportunities to bolster the United States’ ability to compete on the global stage, he agreed it was important to look forward, even as the two countries worked to resolve outstanding issues on Yemen and human rights.
Within weeks of his visit, a steady stream of Saudi ministers began descending on Washington — from foreign affairs and defense to commerce, investment and environment. Riyadh also saw a revolving door of U.S. delegations. U.S. officials started sending messages to American companies that it was OK to do business in the kingdom, and the Saudi finance minister held a two-day forum in Washington with business leaders on how the country was making regulatory changes to accommodate American and other foreign companies.
But despite the steady progress being made by the two sides at the working level, Biden’s continued refusal to normalize relations with MBS was taking its toll — especially on the Saudi public, which felt disrespected by the perceived personal attacks against the crown prince, who remained wildly popular at home.
“We are civilized nations,” one Saudi official lamented. “This isn’t some Twitter war between Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.”
Ambassador al-Saud was more diplomatic but echoed the sentiment. “We never disparaged a U.S. leader,” she told POLITICO. “We can agree or disagree on policy, but you can’t go personal, or our whole nation stands rank and file, and that is what we did.”
Tensions boiled over once again in February, as gas prices skyrocketed and Russia began amassing troops on the border with Ukraine. Delegations traveling to Riyadh appealing for an increase in oil production were rebuffed. When Biden asked for a call with MBS to discuss the oil crisis, the crown prince referred the president to the ailing king — his stated preferred interlocutor — before he rejected Biden, too. The message from Riyadh: It’s not our problem and we aren’t the bad guy. America caused its own energy crisis by refusing to pump more of its own oil and killing the Keystone XL pipeline project running from Canada to the United States. Therefore, a short-term spike in Saudi production would not solve America’s long-term energy needs. Riyadh stuck with Moscow on agreed-upon production caps as part of its OPEC+ agreement to “protect market stability.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a game-changer. Saudi Arabia ultimately signed onto a UN-General Assembly resolution condemning the war, but was resistant to U.S. pressure to further isolate and punish Putin, with whom MBS enjoyed good relations. The Saudis have viewed Russia’s increased military footprint and influence in the Middle East as a hedge against Washington. And it was Vladimir Putin, when world leaders ignored MBS after Khashoggi’s murder at the G20 meeting, who walked up to the Saudi crown prince and high-fived him.
White House aides feared the standoff with MBS was pushing the decades-long partnership with the kingdom to the brink and could end cooperation with Saudi Arabia for the remainder of Biden’s term — driving the country further into the arms of Russia and China, whose growing ties with the kingdom had become even more concerning to Washington than the Saudi relationship with Moscow. MBS has recently invited President Xi Jinping to visit Riyadh and was reportedly considering pegging some oil sales to the Chinese yuan. Most concerning were the kingdom’s plans to purchase ballistic missiles from Beijing, something the Democratic lawmakers noted in their letter to Biden.
U.S. allies from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to French President Emmanuel Macron — both of whom traveled to Riyadh in recent months — and even Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett were all urging Biden to end the feud with MBS, according to both Saudi and U.S. officials. The fog finally cleared in April after the White House dispatched CIA Director William Burns, a well-respected figure in the kingdom, who met quietly with MBS in the port city of Jeddah and emphasized the importance of maintaining the US-Saudi partnership. The prospect of a Biden visit became more serious and was locked in after a visit to Washington last month by Prince Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi Deputy Defense Minister and MBS’ brother.
In an interview with POLITICO, Prince Khalid said Biden’s visit would have a “strong impact on the region and enhance our working relationship.”
“There is a recognition from the U.S. government that Saudi Arabia is an important ally. It’s hard to get big things done in the region, related to security or the global economy, without us,” he told POLITICO. “This relationship is the cornerstone of stability — both in the Middle East and in the global economy. In Saudi Arabia we look forward to defining what this relationship will look like in this century.”
The thaw now appears official. In anticipation of his upcoming trip, Biden took the rare step of praising the kingdom’s “courageous leadership” after Saudi Arabia signed onto to the extension of a UN-brokered truce between Yemen’s warring factions that has led to the most peaceful period in the seven-year-long war.
On the same day, OPEC+ announced an agreement on a larger-than-expected hike in output. In a statement, the White House said, “We recognize the role of Saudi Arabia as the chair of OPEC+ and its largest producer in achieving this consensus,” and U.S. officials tell POLITICO they expect steady increases throughout the year.
“It took a lot of advocacy with the president to get him to do this,” a senior administration official told POLITICO of the upcoming visit. “It’s not in his comfort zone. But the fact the Saudis have stepped up gives him a little cover.”
It would be naive to think oil and immediate U.S. economic pressures aren’t a major factor in Biden’s decision to travel to Saudi Arabia. But both U.S. and Saudi officials say that while in the kingdom, the two sides will also unveil a broader partnership that involves agreements on infrastructure, clean energy, space, economic investment and cyber — with ambitious projects, such as excavating water from the moon to mapping space to developing a 6G network.
Officials won’t say publicly this is about competition with China, but plans to create production hubs across in a number of sectors throughout the Middle East will make the region, and the world, less reliant on Chinese supply chains.
“This is how we can both own the future,” another senior U.S. official told POLITICO.
With Saudi investment and American know-how, the hope is that the projects will encourage foreign direct investment and create jobs that prepare the kingdom for a post-oil economy, just as American companies developed the Saudi oil sector nearly 80 years ago, while strengthening US global competitiveness — one of President Biden’s long-stated foreign policy priorities.
“We know what the U.S. did for Saudi Arabia,” al-Saud told POLITICO. “Your companies helped build our country. If we look at what we did together in the last 80 years, imagine what we can in the next 80.”
LEVIN REPORT REPORT: IN NEW MEMOIR, JARED KUSHNER SAYS HE WASN’T WILLING TO TURN HIS BACK ON SAUDI PRINCE OVER ONE MEASLY MURDER-BY-BONE SAW He’s also pinkie-promised that the $2 billion investment he got from the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund had nothing to do with sweeping the killing under the rug.
BY BESS LEVIN JULY 29, 2022
Of the very long list of things one could take issue with regarding Jared Kushner’s time in the White House—a list that includes botching the government’s COVID-19 response and doing nothing to stop his father-in-law’s plot to overturn the election—it’s probably his close personal relationship with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman that rankles the most. That largely has to do with the fact that MBS approved the kidnapping and dismemberment of one of his critics—U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi—and rather than have his father-in-law condemn the guy, Kushner reportedly went to bat for him with Donald Trump, which resulted in the prince literally getting away with murder.
Apparently having heard these criticisms, Kushner decided to address them in his new memoir—in which he writes that yeah, chopping a man into pieces is bad, but he wasn’t going to let that overshadow all the good his authoritarian pal had also done.
The Wall Street Journal reports that in Breaking History: A White House Memoir, out on August 23, the former first son-in-law “provides a carefully framed defense of his relationship with Prince Mohammed. Mr. Kushner said he viewed Prince Mohammed as a historic figure who brought once-unimaginable social reforms to Saudi Arabia and steered the kingdom toward a warming relationship with Israel.” In regard to MBS being accused of facilitating Khashoggi’s grisly murder, Kushner writes: “While this situation was terrible, I couldn’t ignore the fact that the reforms that MBS was implementing were having a positive impact on millions of people in the kingdom—especially women. All of these reforms were major priorities for the United States, as they led to further progress in combating extremism and advancing economic opportunity and stability throughout the war-torn region. The kingdom was poised to build on this historic progress, and I believed it would.” In October 2018, about two weeks after Khashoggi was killed, The New York Times reported that Kushner was “urging the president to stand by the prince,” arguing that MBS could “survive the outrage just as he ha[d] weathered past criticism.” Just so it’s completely clear, the “outrage” was over a man being chopped up into pieces.
As the Journal notes, Kushner does not dispute—and his book doesn’t even mention—U.S. intelligence’s conclusion that his princely pal ordered the hit, despite the kingdom’s denials.
Oh, and about that $2 billion investment his private-equity firm received from Saudi Arabia shortly after his time in the White House was over? You know, the one that came against the advisement of the panel that performs due diligence for the Saudis, which concluded that no one in their right mind should give the former first son-in-law a dime but was overridden by the prince himself? Kushner pinkie-swears that had nothing to do with the fact that he treated MBS and company so nicely while working for the U.S. government. A congressional panel is, of course, suspicious—“The American people deserve answers as to whether a top White House official used his office for personal gain and whether the promise of a future payoff for official actions affected U.S. foreign policy under former president Trump,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement—but Kushner has given us his word!
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